Lowell High rebuild on track, but ongoing challenges – Lowell Sun

The first third of the new pedestrian bridge across the Merrimack Canal at Lowell High School arrived on April 19. When the three pieces are all on site, the structure will be welded together to create the South Bridge connecting the new academic wing to the east building. (Courtesy Jennifer Myers/Lowell Public Schools)

LOWELL The first of three parts of the steel framing for the South Bridge arrived on Wednesday, and signaled the beginning of the end of the steel work in Phase 2 of the $381 million Lowell High Schoolrebuild and renovation.

Meanwhile, bathroom parity problems wont be addressed until 2024, and air quality concerns persist.

Suffolk Construction Senior Project Manager Pannha San-Chung updated the School Building Committee during its March 22 meeting that by the end of April, we will be substantially complete with structural steel, which will be followed by the spraying of fireproofing material on the exposed beams before exterior faade work such as framing and sheathing takes place in May.

The steel framing has dominated the skyline on the project since early January when the first columns of the five-story Freshman Academy and the three-story addition to the back end of the 1980s building called the D building, closest to the new Riddick gym began.

Once the building steel was installed, San-Chung said a major milestone would be met with the South Bridge steel going up, as well, which connects from the renovated D building across the Merrimack Canal to the back wing of the existing 1922 building.

The third and final piece of the bridge is expected to arrive on Friday, and the entire structure will be welded together for placement.

Phase 2 commenced in the summer of 2022 with the demolition of the old Riddick Field House and the abatement and tear down of the back section of the D building.

Throughout the rest of this year and into the next, significant interior work will take place including plumbing, electrical and building out the classroom and cafeteria spaces.

San-Chung presented a slightly revised project milestone moving the end of Phase 2 from April 2024 to August 2024, which she said resulted from discussions with the project team Suffolk, Skanska, Lowell High School and the city of Lowell.

The occupancy for Phase 2 originally slated for April 2024 would be virtually impossible because it would only be giving (the high school) one week to move the students, the staff and all the furniture before Phase 3 work begins, San-Chung said.

She called the revised timeline lessons learned from Phase 1 and will allow ample time to do construction punch lists, startup commissioning of all the equipment as well as code inspections.

That extended Phase 2 timeframe does not impact the overall project phasing, with Phase 3 still on track to begin in June 2024 with the renovation of the remaining 1980s building, the demolition of the North Bridge and the renovation of the Father Morissette Boulevard-facing wing of the 1922 building and Cyrus W. Irish Auditorium.

This is moving the intermediate date, Skanska Program Director Jim Dowd said. The overall project completion date of July 2026 has not changed.

The committee learned that the issue of bathroom access and parity will not be addressed until the summer of 2024, when a sports team room in the original Phase 2 plans is partially converted into student toilets.

Perkins Eastman architect Joe Drown said feedback from the School Department was that operationally, they would like to see more toilets particularly in the first floor.

It was also an issue raised several times by the Lowell City Council including responses by City Manager Tom Golden to two of Councilor Kim Scotts motions and at the School Committee meetings.

Until the newly constructed cafeteria, which will be housed in the D building connected to the Riddick Athletic Center, opens in 2024 providing extra egress from the gym audience capacity is limited by code to 999 people.

Currently that sized audience, as well as staff and student athletes, share the use of only seven toilets each for men and women within the space five off the gym floor and two near the first-floor entrance resulting in complaints of long lines during events, especially for women.

Once the egress is opened, the seating capacity will increase to 3,000 people sharing the same number of toilets.

However, Drown said the six additional toilets for female students, and one additional toilet and urinal for male students built out in the team room space, will eventually address the overcrowding issues.

Head of School Mike Fiato asked about timing on the increased bathroom facilities.

Whats the actual date that these extra bathrooms will come online? he asked.

August 2024, Dowd answered.

So theres the remainder of this school year and next school year (2023-2024), Fiato said, a comment which was met by silence from the design team.

Concerns about air quality did not come up at the meeting, but were raised in the Board of Health meeting on April 5, where it was noted that classrooms 527, 556 and 648 in the 1980s building continued to show high-level readings of dust and other airborne debris during construction, according to indoor air quality assessments performed by Cashins & Associates.

Operations and Maintenance Director for Lowell Public Schools Rick Underwood wrote the board that Air purifiers and new filters have been placed in the 3 rooms. There is a plan to increase air flow to the center classrooms once the weather becomes a little warmer.

The half-hour School Building Committee meeting closed with member Jay Mason requesting more timely information regarding project meeting minutes, dissemination of the project plans and schedules.

If we have those pieces of information, we can do a much better job of raising better questions and providing feedback and constructive dialogue, he said.

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Lowell High rebuild on track, but ongoing challenges - Lowell Sun